Tuesday, December 28, 2010

J. C. Romero - Why We Hate LOOGYs

The Philadelphia Phillies and J. C. Romero apparently can't get enough of each other. Even though the team declined Romero's option earlier in the off season, Romero--who will be 35 in 2011-- has signed on for his fifth season with the club. Romero is a LOOGY. What's a LOOGY? He's a "Lefty-One-Out-Guy." In other words, he's one of the human rain delays that comes into a game in relief for one guy, a left-handed batter. And Romero has been at this for twelve seasons. He'll get one more.

So why is the Fan's ire reserved only for Romero. It isn't. He's just a prime example. This is the kind of game a guy like Romero pitches:

Joe Blanton pitches six effective innings facing the Washington Nationals. But he starts to labor in the seventh. He gives up a hit to Nyger Morgan and then a sacrifice bunt to Adam Kennedy. Blanton then walks Zimmerman and Adam Dunn is coming up (yeah, this is a 2010 scenario). Out pops the manager and points with his left arm and taps it to signal he wants his LOOGY. The people in the stands sit around for several minutes while those watching at home must endure another commercial with the middle aged couple sitting in separate bathtubs. Romero comes in and tries without success to get Dunn to fish after his Frisbee-like slurves that end up a foot or two outside. Dunn walks. Out pops the manager and taps his right arm this time since Willingham is a right-handed batter and the folks in the stands wait another few minutes while the folks at home watch a dumb beer commercial that again makes men look like the dumbest creatures on earth.

THAT, folks, was a LOOGY moment. And if you think this Fan is fooling about Romero being the prime example, consider that he pitched in sixty games and logged a grand total of 36.2 innings. Consider that Romero walked 7.1 batters per nine innings, his second year in a row over the seven mark. Consider that Romero was over the 1.5 mark in WHIP for the sixth time in his twelve year career. All that adds up to what makes him a LOOGY extraordinaire.

In Romero's defense, seven of his walks were intentional passes. He would be the guy walking Zimmerman to get to Dunn. That will inflate your walk total some. Nearly 1/7 of his career walks have been intentional. And he did register a .217 batting average by left-handed batters with a .277 slugging percentage. But the point stands that he will still put three out of every ten left-handed batters on base.

If there was one rule this Fan would make it would be to only allow one pitching change per half inning. The entire match up game just kills fans with terminal boredom. It's the only baseball equivalent to the NFL's extra point-commercial-kickoff-commercial snooze-fest. And it is a completely lazy event for a manager. They will make that move 999 times out of a thousand. It's tedious and unnecessary. If you didn't like that rule, then the other rule would be that the second and third (and fourth and fifth) relievers in an inning don't get warm up pitches. Why do relief pitcher need warm up pitches anyway? They just warmed up in the bullpen right?

No offense to Romero. He's just a lucky schmuck who was born to throw with his left hand trying to ride his wave as long as he can. More power to him. It's simply a case where the news of his signing set off this wave of ennui for this writer. LOOGYs are a bane to baseball. But one-and-done is the standard operating system for lefty relievers. It has been for a long time and will be for a long time to come.

Followers

Privacy Policy

The Flagrant Fan (Glimmer Tree, LLC) knows that you care about how your personal information is used and shared, and we take your privacy very seriously. Please read the following to learn more about our privacy policy. By visiting our website, you are accepting the practices outlined in this Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy covers The Flagrant Fan's treatment of personal information that The Flagrant Fan gathers when you are on the The Flagrant Fan website and when you use The Flagrant Fan services. This policy does not apply to the practices of third parties that The Flagrant Fan does not own or control, or to individuals that The Flagrant Fan does not employ or manage.

Information Collected by The Flagrant Fan: We only collect personal information that is relevant to the purpose of our website. This information allows us to provide you with a customized and efficient experience. We do not process this information in a way that is incompatible with this objective. We collect the following types of information from our The
Flagrant Fan users: 1. Information You Provide to Us: We receive and store any information you enter on our website or provide to us in any other way. You can choose not to provide us with certain information, but then you may not be able to take advantage of many of our special features. 2. automatic Information: o We receive and store certain types of information whenever you interact with us. The Flagrant Fan and its authorized agents automatically receive and record
certain "traffic data" on their server logs from your browser including your IP address, The Flagrant Fan cookie information, and the page you requested. The Flagrant Fan uses this traffic data to help diagnose problems with its servers, analyze trends and administer the website. o The Flagrant Fan may collect and, on any page, display the total counts that page has been viewed. o Many companies offer programs that help you to visit websites anonymously. While The Flagrant Fan will not be able to provide you with a personalized experience if we cannot recognize you, we want you to be aware that these programs are available. E-mail Communications The Flagrant Fan is very concerned about your privacy and we will never provide your email address to a third party without your explicit permission, as detailed in
the "Sharing Your Information" section below. The Flagrant Fan may send out e-mails with The Flagrant Fan-related news, products, offers, surveys or promotions. CookiesCookies are alphanumeric identifiers that we transfer to your computer's hard drive through your Web browser to enable our systems to recognize your browser and tell us how and when pages in our website are visited and by how many people. The Flagrant Fan cookies do not collect personal information, and we do not combine information collected through cookies with other personal information to tell us who you are or what your screen name or e-mail address is. The "help" portion of the toolbar on the majority of browsers will direct you on how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, how to command the browser to tell you when you receive a new cookie, or how to fully disable cookies. We recommend that you leave the cookies activated because cookies allow you to use some of The Flagrant Fan's coolest features. The Flagrant Fan's advertising partners may place a cookie on your browser that makes it possible to collect anonymous non-personally identifiable information that ad delivery systems use to present more relevant ads. If you would prefer to opt-out of this standard practice, please visit our advertising partner Platform-A's privacy policy and opt-out page. Sharing Your Information Rest assured that we neither rent nor sell your personal information to anyone and that we will share your personal information only as described below. The Flagrant Fan Personnel: The Flagrant Fan personnel and authorized consultants and/or contractors may have access to user information if necessary in the normal
course of The Flagrant Fan business. Business Transfers: In some cases, we may choose to buy or sell assets. In these types of transactions, user information is typically one of the business assets that is transferred. Moreover, if The Flagrant Fan, or substantially all of its assets, were acquired, user
information would be one of the assets that is transferred. Protection of The Flagrant Fan and Others: We may release personal information when we believe in good faith that release is necessary to comply with a law; to enforce or apply our Terms of Use and other policies; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of The Flagrant Fan, our employees, our users, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for fraud protection and
credit risk reduction. Syndication: The Flagrant Fan allows for the RSS syndication of all of its public content within the The
Flagrant Fan website. With Your Consent: Except as noted above, we will contact you when your personal information is shared with third parties or used for a purpose incompatible
with the purpose(s) for which it was originally collected, and you will be able to opt out to prevent the sharing of this information. Children Under 18 Years of Age You must be 13 years and older to register to use the The Flagrant Fan website. As a result, The Flagrant Fan does not specifically collect information about children. If we learn that The Flagrant Fan has collected information from a child under the age of 13, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. We recommend that minors between the ages of 13 and 18
ask and receive their parents' permission before using The Flagrant Fan or sending information about themselves or anyone else over the Internet. Changes to this Privacy Policy The Flagrant Fan may amend this Privacy Policy from time to time, at its sole discretion. Use of information we collect now is subject to the Privacy Policy in effect at the time such information is used. If we make changes to the Privacy Policy, we will notify you by posting an announcement on the The
Flagrant Fan website so you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances if any, it is disclosed. Conditions of Use If you decide to visit The Flagrant Fan website, your visit and any possible dispute over privacy is subject to this Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use, including limitations on damages, arbitration of disputes, and application of California state law. Effective Date of this Privacy Policy This Privacy Policy is effective as of October 21, 2010 and last updated October 21, 2010.